Guide to Writing Level 1 Lab Reports

(Last revision: 23 October 2013)

Top tips for a good report

 Allow plenty of time for writing your report. Producing a lab report written and
presented to good standards really takes time. There is no better way to produce a bad
lab report than to start working on it only a few hours before the deadline.
 Abide by the page limit. The length of lab reports at Level 1 is strictly limited to two
pages plus a one-page appendix containing the error analysis, a page being defined as
a single side of an A4 sheet. That‟s the maximum length (there is no minimum): any
material that exceeds this limit will not be marked. This rule applies whether you are
using the recommended 10-pt two-column format or not.
 Think carefully about what to include. Level 1 lab reports are not meant to be
complete accounts of what you did during the lab sessions written up, and there is no
need to cover everything. The main purpose of these reports is to help you develop
good writing skills and good skills in the presentation of scientific documents. They
also give you an opportunity to reflect on your work in the labs and to demonstrate
that you have a sound approach to Physics as an experimental science. Your progress
through the tasks prescribed by the lab script is assessed through the mark for good
laboratory practice, not through your lab reports. Rather than covering too much and
being superficial, it might therefore be better to focus only on one particular issue and
do a good job.
 Discuss your results thoroughly. E.g., are the errors quoted realistic? The marker will
be more interested by what you say about your results than by the results themselves.
 Be clear. Your readers won‟t be impressed by sentences leaving them wondering
what you tried to say.
 No waffling. Padding your report with vague or unwarranted statements will not
impress either.

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  Pay attention to the presentation. Poorly presented reports antagonize the reader.
Follow the advice given in this guide for achieving the expected standards of
presentation. This might take time at first because there are so many details to pay
attention to; however, with some practice you will be able to produce nicely presented
reports with little effort.
 Submit by the deadline. It is much better to submit a half-finished report in time than
a perfect report one minute too late.

1. Writing a lab report

First of all, think about what you will include in your report and what you will leave out. You
do not need to cover all the measurements you made during the practical but you need to
analyse the results of those you mention as thoroughly and as completely as possible. Your
report is likely to hold together better if you focus it on a single result or set of results.
However, if you omit significant parts of the lab script, it is wise to make an explicit note
about this and explain your reasons briefly, e.g., in the Introduction of the report. Once you
have decided what to talk about, ask yourself what details you need to include to explain how
you obtained your results and what they mean. Make sure that you are clear about what you
want to say, and in which order, before you start writing.

Your report will need to be organised into sections containing what the reader would expect
to find. You‟ll typically need an Introduction, a Method section, a Results section, a
Discussion, Conclusions, a list of references and the error analysis appendix, as well as an
abstract. Most people find it easier to write sections in a different order to that in which they
appear in the final report. For instance, although the abstract appears at the top of the report,
it is often easiest to write it last. We recommend that you start with the Method section, then
the Results, then the Discussion, and leave the rest for the end.

It might be that every now and then, you‟ll have difficulties for writing good sentences or
finding the words expressing what you want to say. If so, just skip to another part of the
report and come back to the troublesome paragraphs later. You may find it helpful to outline
what you wish to include in each section, then go back and turn the outlines into text. In case
of block, try to work quickly without worrying too much about producing polished prose.

Do not include any figure or any other material copied and pasted from an external source in
your lab reports, not even material copied from the lab scripts. You should not refer to the lab
scripts explicitly in your reports, unless this would be genuinely unavoidable (e.g., because
you would need to use equations you cannot find anywhere else). It should be possible for
someone who has never seen the lab script and has no access to it to understand your report
without difficulty. Instructions about citing a lab script are given at the end of Appendix A.

From time to time re-read what you have written, sentence by sentence, and ask yourself
whether your text conveys what you want to convey, clearly and without ambiguity. Do not
hesitate to rewrite entire sentences or paragraphs that do not read well. Also, do not forget to
check your spellings!

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Plan to leave your draft on the side for a while, once it is completed, before producing your
report in final form. Reading your work with a fresh eye will help you spot and fix remaining
problems in the English and in the presentation. Polishing the latter can be left for the end;
however, in the long run you may save yourself quite a bit of time by paying attention to the
necessary details right from the start (e.g., use the correct fonts styles for the mathematical
symbols first time round).

This Guide refers here and there to Microsoft WORD, as most students use that word
processing software to write their reports and knowing how to produce scientific documents
in WORD is a useful skill to have. However, other choices are also possible. The Department
does not impose, or even recommend, the use of WORD in preference to other options. You
are welcome, for instance, to prepare your reports in Latex, which is a typesetting program
widely used by research physicists for preparing publications and other documents,
particularly documents containing many equations and mathematical symbols. However,
WORD will be completely sufficient for producing all the lab or computing reports you will
need to submit during your undergraduate studies in the Department.

How to structure your report and what to put where is explained in Section 2. How to avoid
common errors in the written style or the English is addressed in Section 3. Guidelines and
advice about citing your sources and about presenting your reports are given in Sections 4
and 5, and an example of level 1 lab report, which is attached at the end of this document, is
discussed in Section 6. (Although this Guide contains much information about issues of
presentation, please note that it merely aims at clarifying some of the technical questions you
may wonder about when preparing your reports. It is not meant to give a comprehensive list
of all the rules you would need to follow if you were typesetting or designing documents as a
profession.) What information must be given in the list of references to the bibliographical
sources is explained in Appendix A. Advice about writing equations and mathematical
symbols in WORD documents can be found in Appendix B.

The features of scientific content, organisation, presentation and written style markers will
consider are indicated in the relevant marking pro-formas, which are accessible at
http://www.dur.ac.uk/physics/students/assessment/#proformas.

2. Organising your report, section by section

Introduction
The Introduction of a scientific article serves two main purposes. The first one is to set the
scene by putting the work presented in a broader context. This may include an outline of the
history of the subject, a discussion of related work by other people, comments about potential
applications, etc. The second purpose is to establish what the work is about: its motivation, its
objectives, and sometimes its main conclusions. (While the results might be announced in the
Introduction, they are always described in full later in the report.)

For Level 1 reports, the Introduction can be kept short, as it is clear that the work done did
not aim at developing original knowledge. A few words about the general background will be

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in order, as well as a brief description of the work introducing the reader to the content of the
report. For the Level 1 experiments, the amount of theory and equations necessary is usually
small enough that they can be included in the Introduction – in fact, in Level 1 lab reports the
Introduction is often the best place to develop the theory. However, theoretical considerations
may be mentioned in other sections as well if this would help the flow and the clarity of the
report. In particular, if long theoretical developments are necessary, it might be better to
create a separate Theory section. In any case, include only the theory needed to understand
the results. Be sure to include references to anything that is not your own work or common
knowledge. This includes history, equations, and other people‟s work.

As a minimum, the Introduction will contain two paragraphs, the first one setting the scene
and the second one outlining what is presented in the report. The latter will typically begin
with the words “In this work,” followed by a brief description of what has been done in the
work presented and what the report contains.

Method
The purpose of this section is to describe the apparatus and method used in the experiment.
This should be done as concisely as possible; however, what you write should make sense to
someone who has not seen the lab script. Give enough information for your reader to
understand how you obtained your results, but don‟t go into unnecessary details. The guiding
principle is that your report should contain all the information that would be necessary for
someone familiar with the equipment to reproduce your measurements - not more, not less.

Typically the apparatus is described first; this should take about a paragraph. A diagram is
often the best way to present complex information clearly and concisely („a picture is worth a
thousand words‟). However, at level 1 the experimental set up is usually simple enough that it
can be described in a few sentences, if not a few words. Any diagram you would include
should be drawn as neatly as you can manage, and, obviously, be clear, correct and not
misleading. As for any figure, you should introduce each diagram and explain what it
represents in the main text, in addition to the diagram‟s descriptive caption.

It is usually better not to write the description of the method as a chronological narrative.
Instead, think about the logical structure that will make the most sense to a reader (remember
that your aim is to tell the reader what the method is, not what happened during the practical).

The Method section is also a good place to describe the method(s) you used to analyse your
data and to explain how you estimated the experimental errors. The details of error
propagation should go in the separate Error Appendix.

Results

This section is where you give your results. It should also contain a brief description of any
calculations that have been used to obtain final results from raw experimental data. Usually
the results will be presented in a figure or a table and described in the text. Even if all the
results are shown in a figure or a table, you still need to write sentences telling the reader
where the results can be found and what the figure or the table shows – e.g., “As seen from
Figure 1, the dependence of the current on the potential applied is linear within the
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experimental error”, or “The results are summarized in Table 1”. You also need to tell the
reader how this material relates to the experiment you are reporting on. Don‟t include tables
of data when the information is adequately given in a graph or by a few words of text; this is
redundant and wasteful of space.

 Figures and graphs take up a lot of space. Consider whether various results can be
combined into a single graph.
 As you write this section, take note of any theory and relevant equations used to
obtain the final results. In most cases, it is best to put these in the Introduction or a
separate Theory section rather than in the Results section.
 Don‟t quote your results to more significant digits than warranted by their
uncertainty!
 Analyse the data as completely and thoroughly as you can: don‟t shy going much
beyond what you had the time to do during the lab session.

Discussion

This is the part of the report where the physical meaning of the results is analysed. This may
include looking into their implications, comparing them to accepted values or theoretical
predictions, and/or examining the merits of the method. You may go beyond the purely
factual in this section, as long as what you say relates logically to your results – there is no
place for opinions unsupported by evidence, vague statements or irrational speculations in a
lab report. For instance, you may comment on whether there are grounds to suspect that your
results are significantly affected by experimental errors other than those included in the error
calculation, e.g., systematic errors not corrected for. If there are, what does this imply about
your results? It may also be appropriate to include suggestions for improvements in the
experiment. These suggestions should be practical and justified by the rest of the discussion.
Saying what you would have done if you had had another hour in the lab is appropriate;
waffling on what you would have done if you had had an unlimited research budget is not!

If there is much to say, think about the order in which you address the different points or
arguments, and try to give this section a clear sense of direction.

Conclusions

There is no universal or time-honoured rule about the role of the Conclusions section in a
scientific publication, apart that this section (or the concluding paragraph if this section is not
present) should give a suitable ending to the main body of the text. In some journals, this
section is expected only to give new perspectives on the results presented, while in others the
tradition is that it partly or entirely consists of a short summary of the main results. For level
1 lab reports, the best is not to introduce new ideas in your Conclusions section, and instead
use this section to summarise the objectives, method and results of the experiment, including
any conclusions that you have arrived at based on the evidence obtained in the experiment.
What you write should be consistent with the evidence presented in the rest of the report, and
ideally should connect back to the motivation given in the Introduction.

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Acknowledgements
In journal articles, the Acknowledgements is a short section, usually unnumbered,
acknowledging contributions made by others to the ideas or results presented by the authors
and stating who supported the work financially. It is unlikely that you will need to have
formal Acknowledgements in your lab reports at level 1. To avoid stating facts well known
by your reader (the marker), you may omit mentioning discussions with your lab partner and
help received from the lab demonstrator during the session.

References

This section (usually unnumbered) is merely the list of the sources cited in the rest of the
report, with full bibliographic information (see Section 4 and Appendix A). The reference
section is not a complete bibliography: Any entry in this list should be a reference cited in the
report – i.e., do not include books, web sites or journal articles you have consulted but do not
cite explicitly anywhere.

Error Appendix

Whilst the rest of your report must fit onto two A4 sides, including references and abstract,
the Error Appendix can extend to the whole of a third page. This part of the report is where
you give the details of the error analysis you carried out, step by step. Thus start with the
errors on individual measurements (or on the slope and intercept of a line of best fit), and
explain how you propagated them through the equations to obtain the error on your final
results. Show enough details of the error propagation to enable the marker to see that your
method is correct. However, be succinct – there is no point quoting the numerical result you
obtained at each and every intermediate step of the calculations. Refer to Hughes and Hase
[1] or other sources for any equation which would be too long to give in full.

Importantly, the Error Appendix should not contain anything else than the error analysis
carried out to calculate the uncertainties quoted in the main part of your report. Explanations
about how you evaluated the random or systematic errors in your measurements will
normally fit best in the main body of the report; however, details such that the uncertainty
was taken to be „one unit on the last digit‟ are for the appendix.

Although this appendix comes after the References section, refer to your sources as you
would in the rest of the report, where appropriate. (Appendices normally come before the
references. Placing this Error Appendix on a page of its own after the references, as
prescribed by the Department, is not standard practice.)

Abstract

The abstract should come first in your report, immediately after the title and authorship
details. An abstract is a short paragraph of text giving a summary of the major methods and
results presented in an article or report. For scientific papers, a major function of the abstract
is to let a reader know whether they wish to read the entire paper. Therefore it is often used as

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a sort of advertisement and may be printed in various places without the full text of the paper.
(For an example, go to arxiv.org and click on the “new” listings in a subject category. The
text you see in each entry is the abstract of the paper. Click on the pdf link and you should
see the same text set off in a separate paragraph at the beginning of the paper.)

 The abstract should make sense on its own. It should not be necessary to read the
report in order to understand the abstract, and it should not be necessary to read the
abstract to understand the report. Don‟t refer to tables, equations, etc, that appear in
the report.
 It should contain the key results. If the main result of the experiment is a number (e.g.,
a value of the speed of light), put the measured number in the abstract with its
uncertainty and units.
 An abstract does not contain tables or figures, and usually does not have equations
unless they are very short and simple enough to be written on one line in the running
text. As abstracts should be self-contained, any citation of an external source must be
accompanied by the full bibliographical reference of the source rather than by a
reference number.
 Most of all, keep the abstract short and succinct (200 words or less). Save the details
for the actual report.

Because the abstract summarises the report or paper as a whole, many people find it easiest to
write last. Here is one way to construct an abstract:

1. For each section of the report, summarise the most important idea(s) in one or two
sentences, or even half a sentence if possible. (Be ruthless in your selection of what to
put in the abstract: include enough details for the reader to have a clear idea of what
you have done and obtained, assuming that this reader is another physicist, and leave
the rest out.)
2. Put the sentences together, in the same order as the sections of the report.
3. Read it to make sure it makes sense and that it covers all the essential points, and edit
as needed. That‟s your abstract!

The abstract of the Discovery Report will be only formatively assessed – i.e., it will be
assessed but no marks will be returned. The abstracts of your other reports will be
summatively assessed – i.e., they will count toward the report mark.

3. Written style and English

Concerning the written style, aim for simplicity, clarity and concision. Be precise and
choose your words carefully.

Key points:

 Your report must make sense to someone who has no access to the lab script and
would know nothing about what you have done besides what is mentioned in the

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 report. Hence, make sure to include all the details of the experiment or the
calculations that are really necessary to understand how the results were obtained.
Leave the unessential details out – e.g., that the silicon diode was connected to blue
leads or that you used a connection box to wire up your circuit.
 Do not present matters of opinion or mere speculations as facts. For instance, “The
voltage drop across the resistor was accurately measured with a multimeter”. Why are
you so sure that this measurement was accurate?
 Be precise and try to make sure that what you write is unambiguous.
For example:
i. “This is a reliable result.” Reliable for what purpose? “At high frequencies
the wires and oscilloscopes have a capacitance.” No: they have a capacitance
at all frequencies and the effect of this capacitance becomes significant at
high frequencies. And what do you mean by “high frequencies”?
ii. “Calculated” is not the same as “measured”. For instance, imagine that you
have obtained the electric resistance of a wire by measuring the potential
drop across the wire, V, and the current flowing through it, I, and calculating
the ratio V/I. You can say, without ambiguity, that you have “calculated the
resistance from the experimental values of V and I”. If the details of the
method are not important, you can also say that you have “measured the
resistance”, even though a calculation was involved in the process. Simply
saying that you have “calculated the resistance”, without more information,
would strongly suggest that you obtained it theoretically, e.g., from the
resistivity, length and cross section of the wire.
iii. “The resistance was obtained by graphing the measured voltage against the
current and using LINEST to calculate the gradient.” No, no and no. (i) One
does not need to make a graph for using LINEST. (ii) The gradient of what?
(iii) “Using LINEST” would be completely obscure to a reader not familiar
with Excel, and it probably does not matter much whether you used Excel, or
Python, or some other software to do the calculation. A better way of
expressing the same would be, e.g., “The resistance was obtained by least-
squares fitting a straight line to the experimental distribution of voltage
against current, the resistance being taken to be the gradient of this line.”

Other points worth noting:

 The text should flow smoothly throughout the report. To this effect, it helps to
punctuate and treat the equations as if they were sentences forming part of the text,
whether they are displayed on a line on their own or not. See, e.g., how this is done in
Young and Freedman [2].
 Sentences are not equations, though. Pseudo-equations, as in “where g = gradient”,
have no place in a report (instead, write “where g is the gradient” or equivalent).
Likewise, when talking about the logarithm function or the sine function in the text,
call them logarithm and sine, not log and sin (e.g., “taking the logarithm of N(t)”, not
“taking the log of N(t)”).
 For clarity, you need to define any symbol representing a physical quantity the first
time it is used, even if you think that its meaning is quite obvious. For instance, if you
use the symbol c to denote the speed of light, you need to tell the reader that c is the
speed of light.

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 Unless they refer to numerical results or are parts of mathematical expressions,
numbers below ten are usually written in full (for instance, “the three readings
averaged to 3 μs”). Use numerals for larger numbers (“the 12 readings averaged to 3.2
μs”).
 Names of elements or compounds normally start with a small letter, not a capital letter
– e.g., “a silicon diode”, not “a Silicon diode” (and definitely not a “silicone diode”,
silicone is a polymer).
 And of course, watch the punctuation, check the spellings and use the right words...
i. Concerning the punctuation, compare the following sentences:
(a) The angular frequency of motion is (k/m)1/2, where k is the force
constant of the spring and m is the mass of the body. The period of
oscillation is therefore proportional to m1/2.
(b) The angular frequency of motion is (k/m)1/2. Where k is the force
constant of the spring and m is the mass of the body. The period of
oscillation is therefore proportional to m1/2.
(c) The angular frequency of motion is (k/m)1/2, where k is the force
constant of the spring and m is the mass of the body, the period of
oscillation is therefore proportional to m1/2.
(d) The angular frequency of motion is: (k/m)1/2, where k is the force
constant of the spring and m is the mass of the body. The period of
oscillation is therefore proportional to: m1/2.
The punctuation is correct in (a). In (b) a full stop is incorrectly used in lieu
of a comma. In (c) a comma is incorrectly used in lieu of a full stop. In (d) the
colons (:) are superfluous.
ii. “It‟s” means “It is” or “It has”. The possessive pronoun is “its”, as in “its
value”. In any case, avoid contractions such as “it‟s”, “hasn‟t” or “doesn‟t” in
formal writing.
iii. Avoid colloquialisms, too as in “Hubble came up with a value of H0”
(instead, write “Hubble obtained a value of H0” or equivalent). Reports need
to be written carefully and in more formal English than many people would
use in everyday life.
iv. The word “principal”, as in “the principal quantum number”, is not spelled
“principle”, as in “the Principle of Least Action” and “the principles of this
method”. The word “complement”, as in “these results complement those
obtained using the other method”, is not spelled “compliment”, as in “she
returned the compliment”.
v. Data is the plural of datum but is often used as a singular (e.g., “this data
shows ...”). However, using this word as a plural has the preference of many
careful writers, at least in British English (e.g., “these data show ...”).
vi. American spellings are acceptable but British spellings are preferred;
however, be consistent and do not mix American and British spellings. Use a
spell checker to help you with the spellings; however, remember that spell
checkers won‟t be able to spot what‟s wrong in, e.g., “the geranium diode”.

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4. The references
The purpose of references, besides avoiding plagiarism, is to help other people find the
information you used to support your argument and learn more about the subject. Anything
that you had to look up must be referenced. Also, anything that is not your own original work
and that a reader in your target audience might not be expected to know should be referenced.
(For Level 1 lab reports, write for an audience of other level 1 students, even though your
reports will be read and assessed by a member of the academic or research staff.) For
example, you may have memorized Hubble‟s Law and may not need to look it up, but you
can‟t assume that all your classmates will be familiar with it and so you should include a
reference if mentioning it in your report. The places where you will most likely need
references are the introduction (for history, equations, and related work), the discussion (for
accepted values), and the error appendix (for error propagation formulas).

A reference consists of two parts: an entry in the list at the end of the report, in the
References section, giving full bibliographic information about the source (see Appendix A
for guidelines), and a “pointer” in the text that refers the reader to that entry. An easy way to
do this is with a numbered list, and it is recommended that you use this system for your lab
reports. For example, the textbook by Young and Freedman might be numbered [1] in the list
of references. Then, every time you need to cite Young and Freedman in the text, you simply
put “[1]” at the end of the relevant sentence.
 While other arrangements are sometime used in the world at large, in this Department
you are expected to number the references in the order in which they appear in the
report and to list all your references in a single “Reference” section placed at the end of
your report (but before the Error Appendix). We strongly recommend that the references
numbers be placed between square brackets – e.g., [1]. (Use round brackets for equation
numbers rather than reference numbers. Writing the reference numbers as superscripts
without square brackets is acceptable but not recommended.)
 Use the same reference number for each citation of the same source. If the source is a
particular page of a book rather than the book as a whole, you will need to use a different
reference number for each different page cited. However, in most cases there is no need
to cite a particular page. E.g., in the example above, use [1] to refer to Young and
Freedman each time you cite Young and Freedman as your source of information,
irrespective of where the relevant information is given in this book.
 Group multiple references in a single bracket: e.g., [1,2] rather than [1][2] or [1-3,6]
rather than [1][2][3][6].
 Do not cite references in an equation. If necessary, cite your source(s) of information in
the text immediately preceding or following the equation.
 The proper place for a reference to the source of a figure is the figure caption.
 Remember that citing your sources does not exempt you from using your own words
when writing a report. If you really need to copy someone else‟s words in your report,
which is unlikely in Physics lab reports, then you must make it clear that these words are
the cited author‟s, not yours. This can be done, e.g., by enclosing the excerpt cited
between quotation marks. Please see the online guidance about avoiding plagiarism at
http://www.dur.ac.uk/physics/students/assessment/plagiarism/avoiding/ about this matter
 Pay attention to the quality of your sources of information. Textbooks and scientific
journals are fine. Websites of reputable organisations are usually acceptable, as long as
they are maintained regularly; however, primary sources are always preferable. By and
large, personal websites and popular news websites are best avoided.

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5. The presentation
Some of the formatting points stated in this section may appear arbitrary, but it is important
to get used to writing in a given style. Moreover, experience shows that certain ways of
formatting or typesetting text work better than others. Following the rules closely will help
you produce a document with decent standards of presentation.

Every scientific journal has its own style guide that must be adhered to by authors who wish
to publish in that journal. The main rules for lab reports in this Department are spelled out in
the document entitled “Durham Physics: Report Writing Guideline”, which can be found in
the online lab guide (at http://labs.physics.dur.ac.uk/skills/general/writingreports.php) and on
the Department‟s web site (http://www.dur.ac.uk/physics/students/assessment/reportwriting/).
The present Guide contains all these rules but is much more complete.

General presentation (general layout, margins, fonts, etc)

We strongly recommend the two-column format used in the “Report Writing Guidelines”
document and in the model lab report and “templates” published on the web pages mentioned
above.

We also strongly recommend that, as in these examples, you use “Times New Roman” fonts
throughout your report. Please note that the minimum font size for the body of the text is 10
pt (9 pt for the captions, tables, references and abstract) and the minimum total margin width
is 37 mm (e.g., 18.5 mm on each side). Attempting to circumvent the length limit by using
another font than Times New Roman or other means is likely to compromise the quality of
presentation of your report.

“Templates” in the recommended format can be downloaded from the web pages mentioned
above. WORD users are invited to download either sample_2003.doc or sample_2007.docx,
depending on their version of WORD, while LATEX users should download sample.tex and
appendix.tex.

Points to note:

 Besides your name and the name of your lab partner, do not forget to mention your
lab group and your lab day in the authorship information.
 Your report will look better if you align the text both left and right throughout the
document. (Beware that WORD might change the justification between paragraphs.
You may want to check that the whole report is properly aligned before submitting it.)
 For aesthetic reasons, it will often be better to place the “floats”, i.e., the tables and
the figures, either at the top or at the bottom of a page rather than right in the middle
of a column. (Figures include graphs, diagrams, photos, etc.)
 Don‟t wrap text around figures.
 All figures and tables should have a caption explaining what they represent and a
figure or table number. (Figure captions usually go under the figure, while table
captions are usually placed above the table.) All figures and tables should also be
referred to in the main text of your report.

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  Ideally, captions should be short but also sufficiently informative that someone with
the necessary expertise would be clear about what the figure or the table represents
without having to refer to the rest of the report.
 In general, aim at producing reports that look clean and tidy.

Graphs

Figures in lab reports, including graphs, must have high standard of presentation, higher than
would be acceptable for figures you could put into your lab book. In particular, please note
the following.

 Design your graphs (and figures in general) so that they are easy to read and clearly
show all the key features.
 All figures must be numbered. The figure number must be indicated at the beginning
of the caption. Graphs do not get called Graph 1, Graph 2, etc… They are figures
and should be called Figure 1, Figure 2, etc…
 Figures in reports should not have titles; this information will go in the figure caption
instead.
 Don‟t use legends unless absolutely necessary. Again, this information should be
included in the caption (e.g. “The solid line shows a linear fit obtained by the least
squares method”).
 The plot background should be white, not grey or coloured.
 Don‟t use grid lines. However, make sure that the axes have tick marks.
 There should not be a border enclosing the whole figure like a frame.
 Don‟t let EXCEL write the equation of the line of best fit in your graphs.
 Remember to include error bars! If the error bars are too small to be visible, note this
in the caption.
 Minimum and maximum values on the axes should be chosen so that the plot fills
most of the space. Try to avoid wasted space.
 Make sure each axis is labelled with a brief description of the appropriate variable
and its units. You may need to use abbreviations that have been defined in the text so
the axis titles don‟t become too long. Use clear and informative labels. For instance,
“V(V)” is not good. Better would be, e.g., “VL (V)” or “Potential difference across the
inductor (V)”. If your axis shows the log of the current, you should specify the units
in which you measure the current. (The log is dimensionless.)
 Choose axis units to avoid large numbers of zeros, which waste space and are
difficult to read. Use powers of ten, or better, use SI prefixes, such as  for micro. Do
not denote powers of ten by an E followed by the exponent; this notation belongs to
computer programs, not to publications or lab reports.
 Font sizes for axis titles and numbers must be large enough to be easily readable (9 pt
minimum after the figure has been imported). If you need to decrease the size of the
figure after importing it into your report, check and make sure the text is still large

12
 enough. Ideally, the font size after reduction should be about the same as in the text
or the figure caption. Much larger sizes may make the figure look odd or unbalanced
in the context of your report.
 Ensure that your figures are still legible when printed on a black and white printer,
e.g., by distinguishing different curves by their line style (solid, short-dashed, long-
dashed, dotted, etc), and not just by their colour.

You can produce your graphs using the software of your choice – this could be EXCEL (which
is fine for simple graphs) or Python (which is less limited than EXCEL) or something else, at
your convenience. The online Physics lab guide has detailed instructions about using EXCEL
for this purpose, including a tutorial suitable for self-study – see
http://labs.physics.dur.ac.uk/skills/skills/excel.php.

Figures 1 gives an example of a graph defective in multiple ways: the title, the grid lines, the
border and the equation of the line of best fit should not be present, the horizontal axis is
excessively long, and the axis titles and markers are oversized. Figure 2 illustrate how the
same graph could look like once reformatted along the above guidelines on the guidelines.
Although Figure 2 occupies a smaller amount of space on the paper as Figure 1, it is clearer.

Figure 1: A poorly presented graph. Figure 2: An improved version of

the graph shown in Figure 1.

Tables
Like figures, tables must have a caption and must be numbered. Tables are not figures and do
not get called Figure 1, Figure 2, etc… They should be called Table 1, Table 2, etc…

Removing useless horizontal or vertical lines will improve the presentation of your tables. All
the entries, including the headings, should fit comfortably in the width or height of the
columns or rows; long headings should thus be avoided.

13
Equations and mathematical symbols
Equations may be included in regular text provided they are short, fit on a single line, and
don‟t contain unusual symbols such as square roots (for example, E=mc2 is fine). However,
you will encounter situations in which an equation is too long or too complicated to be
included in text. Furthermore, you may have an important equation that you will need to refer
to later in the report, for instance in the analysis of your data. In this case, you should use a
“displayed equation”, which is set off from the text on its own line, centred in the column.
Displayed equations do not have captions, but they should have an equation number at the
right-hand side of the column. For example, one of the error propagation formula used in the
Circuits 1 experiment is given by

   
2 2

R  R  V    I  , (1)
V   I 

where R is the resistance, V is the voltage and I is the current across the resistor; αR, αV, and αI
are their respective uncertainties. Later on, you can simply refer to this equation as Eq. (1).

 You must define, in the text, all variables used in equations the first time they appear
in the report.
 Inline equations should not contain displayed fractions.
 Number displayed equations on the right hand side, as done above and in the Scripts
and Discovery scripts.
 Make sure that equation numbers can be distinguished from reference citations. For
example, use square brackets for references, i.e. Ref. [1], and round brackets for
equations, i.e. Eq. (1).
 Reference citations to the source of a displayed equation should be placed at an
appropriate point in the text preceding or following the equation.
 Equations should be read as part of the text and punctuated (at their end) with
appropriate commas or full stops.
 Don‟t capitalise the word following the equation unless you are beginning a new
sentence and have placed a full stop at the end of the equation.
 Use the same symbols and the same fonts for the same quantities throughout your
text. For example, if your variables are denoted L and f0 in your equations, they should
also be denoted L and f0 (not L and f0) in your text.
 Mathematical and physical quantities are usually denoted by italic letters. However,
upright letters are used for function names and abbreviations. Numbers are not
italicized either. Example: “V0 sin 2ωt” (not “V0 sin 2ωt”).
 Don‟t use the letter w in lieu of the Greek letter omega (ω).
 Make sure that the fonts used in the equations matches in size the fonts used in the
rest of the report. E.g., if you report is in the recommended 10 pt size, write the
equations in 10 pt size, not 12 pt size.

14
Microsoft WORD includes an equation tool which will allow you to create equations with
relative ease. However, we recommend that you use a powerful add-on program called
MATHTYPE instead. MATHTYPE is a commercial software available on the University‟s
Networked PC Service (NPCS). You will be able to install this software easily on your own
computer if you would need to. The “lite” version, which is free, is sufficient for writing lab
reports.

Appendix B of this document gives the necessary information for getting started with
MATHTYPE, as well as practical tips about various relevant issues (such as adding equation
numbers and controlling the size of the fonts).

Units

Use SI units, unless non-SI customary units are more appropriate in the context. For example,
use mm or m, not cm, for ordinary distances. However, it is acceptable to express wave
numbers in cm-1, which is a unit often used in spectroscopy. Also, use appropriate prefixes to
avoid unnecessary zeros. For example, write “we expect a current of 10.2 A” rather than
“we expect a current of 0.0000102 A”.

To get things right:

 Leave a space between the number and the symbol. Example: “5 mm long” (not
“5mm long”).
 Use upright fonts, not italic fonts. Example: “a potential difference of 5 V” (not “a
potential difference of 5 V”).
 As in the rest of your report, use superscripts to denote powers. Example: “an area of
3 m2” (not “an area of 3 m^2”).
 You may use a slash (/) to separate the denominator from the numerator.
Alternatively, you may use inverse powers. For example, “9.81 m s-2” and “9.81 m/s2”
are both acceptable. However, be consistent throughout your report. Using inverse
powers avoids possible ambiguities if the denominator is a product of several factors,
as happens with the units of the Hubble constant (km s-1 Mpc-1).
 Either leave a space or write a centre dot (the symbol ) between factors. For example,
both “9.81 m s-2” and “9.81 ms-2” are good. Be consistent throughout your report,
though.
 Use a cross (×) to multiply a number by a power of ten, not the letter x. For example:
1.42 × 10-3 (not 1.42 x 10-3).
 Keep your notation simple. For example, (1.42 ± 0.01) × 10-1 m s-1 is far easier to read
than 1.42 × 10-1 ± 1 × 10-3 m s-1, and 0.142 ± 0.001 m s-1 is even easier.
 Try and prevent your text editor to break the number and the units over separate lines
(or even worse, break the factors in compound units).

15
 Figure 3: Excerpt from an unsatisfactorily presented report.

Figure 4: The same paragraph as in Figure 3, now satisfactorily presented.

Example
Figure 3 illustrates some of the most common errors of presentation found in level 1 reports.
(a) The presentation of these two lines is unsatisfactory in several respects: (i) the text is
presented in a tabular form while it should flow continuously; (ii) symbols are equated
to words in pseudo mathematical equations; (iii) different symbols are used in the text
(V and I) than in the equation (V and I) for the same quantities.
(b) The author let WORD capitalize the first letter of “where”. Instead, the equation should
be treated as part of the sentence, with a comma following the equation and a lower
case w starting “where” after this comma.
(c) Equations and mathematical symbols should be written in the same font size as the
rest of the text.
(d) Wrong place for the reference number, [1]. This reference number would better fit,
e.g., on the line immediately above the equation.
(e) Equation numbers should normally be right-justified at the end of the line. Leaving
them dangling in the middle, as in the example, makes the displayed equations look
untidy.
(f) Inexpert typesetting of the units.

Figure 3 may be compared to Figure 4, which shows the same piece of text after these various
errors have been corrected.

16
6. An example of level 1 lab report
Attached at the very end of this document is an example of a level 1 lab report, which
illustrates how a very good report might look like when finished. This report is on an experiment
we used to run in the Epiphany Term and which is now discontinued.

Points to note:
 Abstract: The abstract focuses on the essentials, namely what has been measured,
what results have been found, and the most important conclusions derived from these
results.
 Introduction: As is often the best arrangement in level 1 reports, all the necessary
theoretical details are given in the Introduction. This section is organised in two
paragraphs. The first one puts the work into context (this is done, here, by a brief
explanation of what the Hall effect is). The second one outlines what has been done in
the work presented in the report. Theoretical details are also given in this paragraph
because in this particular case they are fitting there well.
 Method: A simple account of the experimental methods used to obtain the results.
Enough information is given for the reader to understand how the results were
obtained. The details of secondary important have been left out (or largely left out:
some unnecessary details are still present, such that the resistance of the sample had
been measured with a multimeter: whether the resistance was measured with a
multimeter or with a specialized ohmmeter does not really matter).
 Results and Discussion: These two sections are normally best kept separate, as usually
the results can first be stated and then discussed. Here these sections have been
merged into one because this improved the flow of the text (it was necessary to
mention the limitations of the data of figure 2 to justify why only the data of figure 1
were used to obtain the rest of the results). The discussion of the final results, in this
example, is a comparison with literature values and comments on how the
measurements could be improved. For some other experiments, comments on the
meaning of the results or their implications could also be the basis of a good
discussion section.
 References: The references are listed in the same order in which they appear in the
text. Note that all the references are given in exactly the same format. Some of them
are to books found in the Library.
 Error Appendix: A complete account of the methods used in the error calculations,
with sufficient information to enable the reader to re-calculate all the errors quoted in
the main part of the report. As “Measurements and their Uncertainties” is cited only in
this appendix, the full bibliographical details of this reference are given in the
appendix, not in the list of references (this is acceptable practice).
 Presentation of the report: All the equations and most of the mathematical symbols
have been written using MATHTYPE. The presentation follows all the guidelines given
in Section 5. However, for the sake of the example, this report has been more highly
polished than prescribed by these guidelines, and indeed more than would be
necessary for justifying a very high mark for presentation.

17
Appendix A: Formatting the references
The subject of bibliographic citations is a vast and complex one. Fortunately, references in
Physics tend to be relatively straightforward; furthermore, the Physics Department here at
Durham does not specify any particular style for references. However, there are certain pieces
of information that must be given regardless of style to allow the reader to locate the
information being referenced. This appendix gives a brief and simplified overview of what is
required for books, journal articles and Web sites. For more information, one place to start is
http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/using/finding/refs/ (the University Library web page on citing
references. The online Physics lab guide has more information with examples at the URL
http://labs.physics.dur.ac.uk/skills/general/references.php.

While we do not specify any particular style for this information, make sure that you are
consistent throughout your list of references.

Books
Books are usually straightforward to reference, as they contain standard bibliographic
information in well defined locations. The order of these pieces of information and the way
they are punctuated may vary depending on the reference style, but the same information is
always needed.

Examples (the first with a page number, the second without):

P. A. Tipler, Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 4th Ed., Worth Publishers, New York
(1999), p. 129.
L. Allen and J. H. Eberly, Optical Resonance and Two-Level Atoms, Dover Publications,
Inc., New York (1987).

Make sure that you include the following information:

 the title of the book;
 its edition (if not the first);
 the name(s) and initial(s) of the author(s) or editor(s);
 the name of the publisher and the place of publication;
 the most recent copyright year (or year of publication).

All of the required information is found on the title page and its reverse (see Figure 3). Some
books will list several places of publication. The usual convention is to choose the first one
listed. If there are multiple copyright dates, use the most recent, but do not use printing or
reprint dates.

The chapter or page number must always be mentioned if it matters – e.g., because the
information referred to would be excessively difficult to find without this information. If it
does not really matter, whether it is mentioned or not is then a question of convention. At
Level 1, it is acceptable not to mention it (in which case you do not need to have a separate
reference for each page referred to). At other levels, please ask the Laboratory Supervisor for
guidance.

18
All of the required information is found on the title page and its reverse (see Figure 5). Some
books will list several places of publication. The usual convention is to choose the first one
listed. If there are multiple copyright dates, use the most recent, but do not use printing or
reprint dates.

copyright
year

publication
place of
authors

publisher
title

Figure 5: A typical book title page and its reverse. Reproduced from Ref. [3].

19
 volume journal title

article
number year
title

authors

article
number
Figure 6: First page of a journal article. Reproduced from Ref. [4].

Journals
Many research journals are now available online as well as in print. However, even if you
find the article online, the reference information is the same as if you found it in a print
volume in the library. Some journals, such as New Journal of Physics, are online only but still
have the same type of bibliographic information. Journal styles vary somewhat, but usually
all the relevant information can be found on the first page of the article, often at the top of the
page (Figure 6).
Examples:
A. K. Mohapatra, T. R. Jackson, and C. S. Adams, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 113003 (2007).
A. D. O‟Connell et al., Nature 464, 697 (2010).

20
Make sure that you include the following information:
 the name(s) and initial(s) of the author(s);
 the title of the journal;
 the volume number;
 the page number of the first page of the article, or the article number (giving the page
number of the first page is always required however, the page number of the last page
is optional in lab reports);
 the year of publication.

Giving the article titles and giving the last page numbers are both optional in lab reports but
may be mandatory in other contexts.

The full list of authors‟ names should be included unless there are more than three. In that
case, give the first author‟s name followed by et al. (Latin for “and others”). Journal titles are
usually abbreviated using standard abbreviations.

Web sites
Conventions for citing Internet sources are still evolving. Therefore there is currently no
standardised format for where bibliographic information is located, and some sites may not
even give all the relevant information. The most important principle of citing web sites is that
while information in books and journal articles (both print and electronic versions) is static,
web sites are dynamic and the information found in them may change over time. For this
reason, it is important to indicate when you accessed the information as well as when the site
was last updated.
Examples:
Hall Effect Sensing and Application, Honeywell Sensing and Control. URL:
http://sensing.honeywell.com/index.php?ci_id=47847. Accessed on 3 June 2013.
A. Waldron, P. Judd, and V. Miller, Physical Review Style and Notation Guide,
American Physical Society (1983, revised 2005), Appendix: Journal Title Abbreviations.
URL: https://authors.aps.org/STYLE/style_jabbr.html. Accessed on 1 September 2010.

Make sure that you include the following information:

 the title of the web page;
 the publisher (i.e., the individual or organisation responsible for the site);
 the complete URL;
 the date you last accessed that page.

For completeness, include as much as possible from the following::

 the name and initials of the author of the content (not the webmaster!);
 the place of publication;
 the copyright date or date of original publication;
 the date the page was last updated.

Note on Wikipedia: Although it is often a good starting point for reading about topics,
Wikipedia is not really an appropriate source for academic work (encyclopedias rarely are, as
primary sources are to be preferred, and Wikipedia is more problematic than most). If you

21
must reference it, please read Wikipedia‟s own statement on researching and citations at the
URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia .

Lab scripts
As mentioned above, there is a general ban on citing lab scripts in your lab reports: it should
be possible for someone who has never seen the lab script and has no access to it to
understand your report without difficulty. However, if citing the lab script is unavoidable
because the information is essential and you cannot find it elsewhere, use the following
reference (or equivalent):

Anonymous, Skills Sessions and Discovery Sessions, 2013/14 ed., Level 1 Labs publications,
Durham (2013).

Appendix B: Writing equations and symbols using MATHTYPE

This Appendix gives more information about MATHTYPE, which is the software we
recommend for writing mathematical symbols and equations in a WORD document. It also
contains tips about such things as numbering equations, changing the size of fonts in
mathematical expressions, and choosing the right fonts.

MATHTYPE vs. WORD’s equation editor

The downloadable extension program MATHTYPE is a convenient way to insert equations in a
WORD document. WORD has a built-in equation editor (or equation tool), which slightly
differs between the 2010 and 2007 versions of this program and is not backward compatible
with previous versions of this application. In many respects, MATHTYPE is similar to the
version of EQUATION EDITOR built in WORD 2003. However, it has many extra features.

MATHTYPE is a program produced by Design Science Inc. You can download a free 30-day
trial from http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/ . After the trial period expires it
reverts to a (free) Lite version, which allows you to use MATHTYPE fonts and symbols and
the editor interface but is more limited in advanced features than the full version.

MATHTYPE is installed on the Networked PC Service of the University (the public PCs in the
Library, in Ph140 and in a number of other locations around the university and the colleges).
On the computers on which this program is installed, it may normally be accessed through a
MathType tab on the top ribbon. Using the Insert Equations menu on the left-hand side of the
screen, you may choose to insert an inline equation (an equation written on a line of text) or a
displayed equation (written on a line of its own between lines of text). You may also choose
to insert a numbered equation; however, you might find it easier to proceed as described
below to number equations.

22
Numbering equations in MATHTYPE
The simplest way of numbering equations is to insert them as displayed equations rather than
numbered equations, and then add the equation numbers yourself. To this end, once an
equation is inserted, align it to the right (that‟s the button within the Home menu), add the
equation number at the very end of the line, and then centre the equation by adding spaces
between the equation and the equation number with the space bar, keeping the equation
number aligned with the right-hand side of the column. The numbering is not automatic in
this approach, and therefore if you change the order of the equations you will have to
renumber them one by one; however, this inconvenience is unlikely to be very significant
given the relatively short length of a lab report.

Changing the size of the fonts

The default size of the fonts in MATHTYPE is 12 pt, which is somewhat larger than the 10 pt
font size recommended for two-column lab reports. To reduce the fonts to their correct size,
edit the equation, go to Size > Define… and set the full size to 10 points. The sizes of the
subscripts, superscripts, etc will change automatically if, as is the default, they are defined in
proportion of the full size. (If the sizes are given in pt rather than in percents of the full size,
you can re-define them in proportion of the full size by clicking on “Factory setting” in the
“Define Sizes” dialog box.)

It is advantageous to do this the very first time you use MATHTYPE within your
document, as the system will remember these new font sizes and will use them by default. If
you type all your symbols and equations using the factory default of 12 pt, you will need to
edit each symbol and equation one by one to bring them to the correct size.

Choosing the right fonts

Subscripts or superscripts that are abbreviations of words are normally written in normal
fonts, not italic fonts. For example, the equivalent resistance of a network of resistors is
properly denoted Req , not Req since the subscript “eq”, which stands for “equivalent”, is an
abbreviation. To use normal fonts, choose the option “Text” in the “Style” menu when
editing the equation.

References
[1] I. G. Hughes and T. P. A. Hase, Measurements and their Uncertainties, Oxford
University Press, Oxford (2010).
[2] H. D. Young and R. A. Freedman, University Physics, 13th Ed., Pearson Addison-Wesley,
San Francisco (2012).
[3] L. Allen and J. H. Eberly, Optical Resonance and Two-Level Atoms, Dover Publications,
Inc., New York (1987).
[4] A. K. Mohapatra, T. R. Jackson, and C. S. Adams, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 113003 (2007).

23